On August 18, I finally got around to mailing in my enrollment to the Vermont State DOE Home Study Office.
It had to include a detailed curriculum for each child. I described the legal requirement and what I included this year in this post.
It also had to include an assessment of last year for each child. I decided to try doing a parent report and a portfolio of the children’s work. That is one the options we have. The others are: an assessment by a licensed teacher or standardized test results (from state approved test) and parent report.
I am very much opposed to state regulation, so I was not going to give them too much information. I included about six math samples from different times in the year, some language arts and phonics worksheets, four multiple-choice science quizzes, the names of a couple of history books we read and a picture of one project we did, a maple sugar house we visited, a couple of pictures of artwork, and a partial reading list – all for each child. I also listed in the parent report what we did for art, music, health , and phys. ed., but did not include anything in the portfolio for those topics.
I felt that this wasn’t very much information, but that it was enough to see that we did something and that they made “appropriate progress” for their ages/abilities, something that is required by statute.
Still, I thought they would ask for more information. I did not believe that they had a legal right to require more information, but I really thought they would ask for it.
I also had concerns about the curriculum because I was not specific with the topics, since I am doing some subjects in a child-led sort of approach. I was, however, specific with the skills that I wanted them to attain.
The state has 14 business days to respond, plus mailing time. I tried not to think about it, but as their time was almost up, I was rushing to the mail every day.
The envelope finally came on Saturday night. I got it Sunday morning, since our mail comes late and is delivered at a common location in our development.
I knew based on how thin it was that the impossible had occurred. Sure enough, when I opened it, my enrollment was approved on the first try!
This was awesome news since this was my first year of doing an assessment and only my second curriculum.
After reading the frustrated parents on the homeschool message boards, who got requests for more information, this was a pleasant surprise.
I still think that the state has no right to require home educating parents to submit a curriculum and assessment to them, but now that I have been through it and I know that I do not need to feel stressed about having enough samples for the state, I don’t resent it quite as much as I did before.
I am just glad to have it behind me so we can focus on this year!
